Monthly Archives: July 2013

The FAI Ballooning Commission (CIA) has updated the CIA World Hot Air Balloon Ranking List ahead of the start of the 2013 competition season. John Petrehn, Nick Donner and Stefan Zeberli lead the rankings which count 918 pilots (of which about 7% per cent are female) from 39 nations in total.

The 2nd place goes to Nick Donner, also from USA, who climbed on top of the podium at the 20th FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Battlecreek (Michigan, USA) in 2012 and finished second in 2006.

Stefan Zeberli

The bronze medal taken at the 9th FAI World Hot Air Airship Championship in 2010 brought Swiss pilot Stefan Zeberli (see picture on the right) to the third step of the ranking list.

About the CIA World Hot Air Balloon Ranking List
The purpose of the CIA World Hot Air Ranking List is to show a ranking of the top hot air balloon pilots of the world and provide a performance comparison among them. The list is established by a calculation formula that includes the results of the last five World Championships resp. World Air Games and to a lesser degree the competitor’s national ranking position.

No any Hungarian pilots are in top 30 but 4 Czech are there. Three Hungarians was in the top 30 at 2000 and only one Czech.

The participants of International Sport Competition of Hot Air Balloons “Sky Fair – 2013” – which was FAI Sporting Event – made a special flight after the contest program. We travelled from Kungur (host city, Perm region) to near Pervouralsk (satellite city of Yekaterinburg) at evening 5th July 2013. There is monument with a huge column which shows the border of Europe and Asia (56.870553, 60.047951). Twenty-two balloons are arrived to the meeting point. The distance is 250 km between Kungur and Pervouralsk which is not so much but the journey was hard because the Russian bus and roads. We had a good lunch and some rest. The organisers provided a nice folklore show too.

Folklore show at border of Europe and Asia

Some balloons are prepared to take-off close to the monument and the rests are moved to a nearby glade after the briefing in the Asian side. We didn’t plan long flight because huge forests, big lakes and few glades were in the flying area. The destination was only crossing the border of the two continents which was successful.

Briefing before the flight

Launch from Asia

We recorded and scored the flights with same tools as the competition flights. The officials of the FAI Sporting Event checked the tracks of GPS loggers after the flights. One pilot turned on the GPS logger during the flight. We can’t record his take-off position but that was the first documented Event were many hot air balloons flight over the Europe – Asia border. The organiser will apply for the approval of Guinness Record.

The green line is the border of Europe and Asia. The tracks of the balloons are red.

Twenty-four competitors entered to the Event and five fiesta pilots participated too. We made seven flights and twenty-five tasks. I had to cancel one flight only because the windy weather. All task sheets, measuring report sheets results and other information published on the Electronic Notice Board: http://balloon.hu/kungur2013/.

The contest area is with open fields, fields under crops and wooded, rivers, lakes, foothills areas. The road network is not the best and I had to reconsider the bad road definition but the local drivers help us so solve these problems. The organiser provided nice excursions for the participants too: visiting the Ice Cave, boat trip, visiting a Monastery, etc.
These teams of the organisers and officials are ready to run category one Event in Kungur too.

You have to come next year. It’s an interesting and great place. Must to see!

Top six pilots:

1. Mamoru Endo

JAP

20164 points

2. Sergej Latypov

RUS

19552 points

3. Numata Minoru

JAP

18536 points

4. Igor Starkov

RUS

18225 points

5. Aleksandr Dultsev

RUS

16189 points

6. Valerij Latypov

RUS

16020 points

Monument of Nikita, the Russian Ikarus in the Park of Aeronauts

Park of Aeronauts

Park of Aeronauts

Opening Ceremony

Memorial to the victims of 2nd World War Hungarian in Kungur cemetery.

Billboard of the Event

“Rafting” (boating) with the Japanese teams

Marker drop

Andrey the chief organiser

Europe

Asia

Eurasia

The winner is…

… Mamoru Endo

Closing Ceremony

Kungur

Kungur

Kungur

Kungur

Kungur

One of three prison is in Kungur. The churches on photos are in prison.